WARNING:
JavaScript is turned OFF. None of the links on this concept map will
work until it is reactivated.
If you need help turning JavaScript On, click here.
This Concept Map, created with IHMC CmapTools, has information related to: ABAI 2017 Kent Johnson, Convergent discovery lessons include a series of instances from which the learner is expected to induce: 1) A concept; E.g., latitude. rectangle, impressionist painting, liberal, digestion, equivalent fraction, pronoun. 2) A principle; E.g., just because two things happen at the same time does not mean one causes another; relation of supply and demand; to round a number round up by 1 if the last digit is five or more, round down by one if it is four or less. 3) A generalization; E.g., a diet high in saturated fat raises a person's cholesterol level. In these cases, students are learning by constructing meaning common among everyone in a society. Inductive discovery learning through application activities and divergent criteria 6th-grade students will construct knowledge (learn) about the Underground Railroad used by slaves to escape from the South and seek freedom in the North. Authentic context for constructing meaning (learning): - Students will create an Underground Railroad museum. Teacher begins conversation by talking about the Underground Railroad, museums and their purpose, and possible exhibits. - Students brainstorm. Teacher references a list of possible exhibits she has created, e.g., monument or statue, symbol, biographies, maps, timelines, paintings, bibliographies, photos, newspapers, books, skits, songs, stories, presentations. Students conference with the teacher to decide what they would like to contribute, both individually and in small groups., Behaviorism and Constructivism in Education Kent Johnson Morningside Academy Seattle, WA www.morningsideacademy.org kent@morningsideacademy.org Common educational Constructivist ground Teachers: - Craft inductive, discovery learning experiences - Prompt learners' prior knowledge to grapple with as as they learn new meanings. - Inject lots of thinking opportunities into discovery lessons, to give learners practice in both thinking and reflection while learning content. - E.g., Learners find patterns, compare and contrast, make inferences, draw conclusions, provide supporting evidence, etc. - Determine the amount of explicit guidance (scaffolding) needed for learning, depending on the student's prior performances in instructional interactions. Learners: - Drive lessons, teachers are facilitators. - Teaching for thinking does not change the content objective. - Instead it changes the way teachers and learners operate as they learning emerges. - Discovery learning versus expository learning. Lessons are based on the Constructivist principle that effective learning and understanding requires designing meaningful, contextualized, holistic, and challenging experiences so that the learner can create new meaning., 6th-grade students will construct knowledge (learn) about the Underground Railroad used by slaves to escape from the South and seek freedom in the North. Authentic context for constructing meaning (learning): - Students will create an Underground Railroad museum. Teacher begins conversation by talking about the Underground Railroad, museums and their purpose, and possible exhibits. - Students brainstorm. Teacher references a list of possible exhibits she has created, e.g., monument or statue, symbol, biographies, maps, timelines, paintings, bibliographies, photos, newspapers, books, skits, songs, stories, presentations. Students conference with the teacher to decide what they would like to contribute, both individually and in small groups. Common Core Standards addressed - Reading and comprehending informational materials - Reading aloud fluently - Producing a report of information - One-to-one conferencing with teachers - Participating in group meetings - Preparing and delivering an individual presentation - Demonstrating a basic understanding of the rules of English in written and spoken form. - analyzing and revising work to improve its clarity and effectiveness - Producing work in one genre, Behaviorism and Constructivism in Education Kent Johnson Morningside Academy Seattle, WA www.morningsideacademy.org kent@morningsideacademy.org Constructivism Constructivism is not a specific pedagogy or a single school of thought. - The term is used differently by many in the literature., Behaviorism and Constructivism in Education Kent Johnson Morningside Academy Seattle, WA www.morningsideacademy.org kent@morningsideacademy.org Instructionism In this context, behavior analystscan insert their own -ism, Instructivism Refers to a set of instructional procedures that efficiently and effectively teach content directly and explicitly in a manner that leads to mastery. Generalized imitation training: - "I'm an expert in X. I want you to be as proficient as me at X, so let me teach you how." - Teacher as expert, not facilitator, as in Constructivist designs. - Focus on teaching, and learning results from teaching; not a focus on learner and learning, as in Constructivist designs. Instructivism's goal is to transmit the culture "to enable new members of a group to profit from what others have already learned. It follows that the principal task of the student is to learn what others already know." (Skinner, 1978) Our behavior analytic version asserts that learning is demonstrated when a proper response occurs in the presence of specific environmental variables, because of the reinforcing consequences that follow their joint occurence (i.e., ABCs). - E.g., Gilbert's Mathetics, Engelmann's Direct Instruction version, Lindsley's Precision Teaching. Efficiency is the hallmark of Instructivism. - Many well-defined components: Assessing learners' entry behaviors and reinforcers; task analysis of antecedent stimuli, responses, and sequences; analyzing their sequences, shaping, prompting, corrective feedback, reinforcement, practice to mastery, and assessment. - Expository learning more time efficient than discovery learning, so much expository instruction, not much discovery teaching., Constructivism is not a specific pedagogy or a single school of thought. - The term is used differently by many in the literature. Constructivism asserts that: Each person learns by making or constructing their own understanding and knowledge of the world - through directly experiencing real-world events, - reflecting on those experiences, - rather than by acquiring fixed, exisiting knowledge. All learning is is an interpretation of the current situation based on an entire history of previous experiences. Knowledge is not a mere copy of the external world. Learning is an active, ever-evolving process. Knowledge is invented, not acquired. Not objectivist like Behaviorism or Cognitivism., In the Headsprout Early Reading program, learners discover the sounds that consonant blends make with explicit instruction, by presenting their separately taught letter sounds together. - Sounds taught: [c,r,f,l,s,p,t,n] - Program says, "I bet you can figure out new sounds all by yourself" - Repertoires tested for discovery: [sn, cr, sl, fl, pl, sp, tr, st] In Morningside's word problem program, students can solve fraction word problems, without instruction, after mastering whole number word problem solving, and fractions computation. Students can make a prediction, without instruction, after mastering how to draw a conclusion, and how to describe behavior in the future. Teaching generative repertoires Advantages: Greater opportunities for discovery, reduction in design time, more opportunities for using already available instructional materials. At Morningside, teaching generative repertoires is as high a priority as teaching academic subjects. E.g., - routines for questioning teachers, peers - reasoning through Thinking Aloud Problem Solving (TAPS) - critiquing through Questioning the Author. - problem solving through John Dewey's Reflexive Thinking., Behavior analysts who understand Constructivist practices can greatly improve the success of Constructivist practices in general education. Get an invitation from a teacher to observe his/her Constructivist lessons Take notes to see where you could suggest injecting Instructivist designs - Wherever knowledge is unambiguous - when correct answers can be clearly identified. -E.g., Foundational repertoires in reading, math, language, writing - especially with tool skills such as phonics, where no good Constructivist data exist. - E.g., basic facts, concepts, and principle in a discipline. - Good places are where lessons are bogged down, and where a good number of students make errors. Note also where the teacher could explicitly teach prerequisite thinking, reasoning, and problem solving repertoires involved in their discovery learning activities. - E.g., Finding patterns, comparing and contrasting, making inferences, drawing conclusions, providing supporting evidence During your feedback session, - suggest the places where they can temper their Constructivist "thinking" injections with explicit instruction in foundational skills. - suggest the places where they could explicitly teach thinking skills before discovery activities. Have a good session, and be a behavioral ambassador! A better system of behavioral education, too! Behavior analysts who understand Constructivist practices can also greatly improve their own Behavioral education designs: Maintain Instructivist practices for teaching foundational reading, writing, and math repertoires, and basic content in a discipline. Seed learner's repertoires with foundational skills, facts, concepts, and principles using efficient generalized imitation training. - Mathetics, and Direct Instruction when a good program is available. - Practice to fluency with celeration using Precision Teaching., 6th-grade students will construct knowledge (learn) about the Underground Railroad used by slaves to escape from the South and seek freedom in the North. Authentic context for constructing meaning (learning): - Students will create an Underground Railroad museum. Teacher begins conversation by talking about the Underground Railroad, museums and their purpose, and possible exhibits. - Students brainstorm. Teacher references a list of possible exhibits she has created, e.g., monument or statue, symbol, biographies, maps, timelines, paintings, bibliographies, photos, newspapers, books, skits, songs, stories, presentations. Students conference with the teacher to decide what they would like to contribute, both individually and in small groups. Assessment Criteria - Accuracy of facts - Effort during work/research times - Presentation to the class - Bibliographic information/list of resources - Spelling and grammar - Content that was covered - Creativity - Cooperated with partners during work times - Neatness and presentation - Organization of written report, Personal Constructivism (Piaget) - Knowledge construction (learning) is due to internal causes or origins, based on one's personal endowment and history. Exogenous (extreme environmental) Constructivism - Knowledge construction (learning) is due to external factors only. - Teachers directly transmit knowledge to the student through unambiguous presentations. Social Constructivism - Meaning is constructed either through 1) social consensus in cooperative learning arrangements, or 2) social negotiation to overcome obstacles while creating new meaning together. Constructivism represents a blend of: Rationalism: Reason and the mind are the source of all meaning, and Empiricism: Individual, direct experiences with the environment are critical. Constructivist pedagogy is more general than specific. - Allows teachers to freedom to construct their own individual pedagogy consistent with their ontology and epistemology., Convergent discovery lessons include a series of instances from which the learner is expected to induce: 1) A concept; E.g., latitude. rectangle, impressionist painting, liberal, digestion, equivalent fraction, pronoun. 2) A principle; E.g., just because two things happen at the same time does not mean one causes another; relation of supply and demand; to round a number round up by 1 if the last digit is five or more, round down by one if it is four or less. 3) A generalization; E.g., a diet high in saturated fat raises a person's cholesterol level. In these cases, students are learning by constructing meaning common among everyone in a society. Discovery learning with convergent criteria Teachers select and sequence examples in such a way that the principle is made as obvious as possible. Teachers begin with open-ended questons to increase student involvement and motivation, and to assure success. Every answer is a good one - no errors with OEQs. - E.g., Present one example and ask several students to describe its features. - Present the next example and ask students to describe features common to the first example, and features different from the first example. - Continue with a series of similar examples. Then in the convergent phase, the teacher asks more pointed questions about the features that all the examples share, until students can describe the relationship., 1) describe (not criticize!) Constructivism as it is currently practiced in education, and 2) illustrate what we could do to influence current practices. More specifically,we must build a technology of teaching that is: 1) responsive to current thinking in education about process and teamwork - Add designs for teaching problem solving, teamwork, negotiation, communication repertoires 2) responsive to current educational assessment - A very high percentage of Common Core objectives and test items require thinking, reasonong, and problem solving 3) maintains our efficient and effective practices in teaching the mechanics of literacy - Such as Mathetics (e.g., Direct Instruction) and Precision Teaching., 6th-grade students will construct knowledge (learn) about the Underground Railroad used by slaves to escape from the South and seek freedom in the North. Authentic context for constructing meaning (learning): - Students will create an Underground Railroad museum. Teacher begins conversation by talking about the Underground Railroad, museums and their purpose, and possible exhibits. - Students brainstorm. Teacher references a list of possible exhibits she has created, e.g., monument or statue, symbol, biographies, maps, timelines, paintings, bibliographies, photos, newspapers, books, skits, songs, stories, presentations. Students conference with the teacher to decide what they would like to contribute, both individually and in small groups. Inductive discovery learning through application activities and divergent criteria Students form teams and work together collaboratively to discuss and exchange ideas as they prepare to construct their exhibits. - Internet, textbooks, literature, personal accounts from slaves, interviews with experts. Teacher guides both individuals and teams in conferences. Students gain experience on how to take notes from their research, synthesize information, and draw inferences and conclusions. When research appears comprehensive, students create their own projects and exhibits. - Work in art room, use computers, engage in small group sharing and discussions. Closure: Students in 4th, 5th, and 6th grades and thier families are invited to the museum opening. - Students act as tour guides for their contribution to the museum, and write individual reports of their work., Behaviorism and Constructivism in Education Kent Johnson Morningside Academy Seattle, WA www.morningsideacademy.org kent@morningsideacademy.org Building better Behaviorism in education The current, dominant theory and practice of teaching children and youth is Constructivism. In order to have greater influence on the American education system, behavior analysts must learn the tenets of Constructivism., Each person learns by making or constructing their own understanding and knowledge of the world - through directly experiencing real-world events, - reflecting on those experiences, - rather than by acquiring fixed, exisiting knowledge. All learning is is an interpretation of the current situation based on an entire history of previous experiences. Knowledge is not a mere copy of the external world. Learning is an active, ever-evolving process. Knowledge is invented, not acquired. Not objectivist like Behaviorism or Cognitivism. A range of Ontologies - (What is reality?) and Epistemologies - (What is Knowledge?) Personal Constructivism (Piaget) - Knowledge construction (learning) is due to internal causes or origins, based on one's personal endowment and history. Exogenous (extreme environmental) Constructivism - Knowledge construction (learning) is due to external factors only. - Teachers directly transmit knowledge to the student through unambiguous presentations. Social Constructivism - Meaning is constructed either through 1) social consensus in cooperative learning arrangements, or 2) social negotiation to overcome obstacles while creating new meaning together., Teachers: - Craft inductive, discovery learning experiences - Prompt learners' prior knowledge to grapple with as as they learn new meanings. - Inject lots of thinking opportunities into discovery lessons, to give learners practice in both thinking and reflection while learning content. - E.g., Learners find patterns, compare and contrast, make inferences, draw conclusions, provide supporting evidence, etc. - Determine the amount of explicit guidance (scaffolding) needed for learning, depending on the student's prior performances in instructional interactions. Learners: - Drive lessons, teachers are facilitators. - Teaching for thinking does not change the content objective. - Instead it changes the way teachers and learners operate as they learning emerges. - Discovery learning versus expository learning. Lessons are based on the Constructivist principle that effective learning and understanding requires designing meaningful, contextualized, holistic, and challenging experiences so that the learner can create new meaning. Inductive discovery learning with defined convergent criteria for learning Convergent discovery lessons include a series of instances from which the learner is expected to induce: 1) A concept; E.g., latitude. rectangle, impressionist painting, liberal, digestion, equivalent fraction, pronoun. 2) A principle; E.g., just because two things happen at the same time does not mean one causes another; relation of supply and demand; to round a number round up by 1 if the last digit is five or more, round down by one if it is four or less. 3) A generalization; E.g., a diet high in saturated fat raises a person's cholesterol level. In these cases, students are learning by constructing meaning common among everyone in a society., In this context, behavior analystscan insert their own -ism, Instructivism Refers to a set of instructional procedures that efficiently and effectively teach content directly and explicitly in a manner that leads to mastery. Generalized imitation training: - "I'm an expert in X. I want you to be as proficient as me at X, so let me teach you how." - Teacher as expert, not facilitator, as in Constructivist designs. - Focus on teaching, and learning results from teaching; not a focus on learner and learning, as in Constructivist designs. Instructivism's goal is to transmit the culture "to enable new members of a group to profit from what others have already learned. It follows that the principal task of the student is to learn what others already know." (Skinner, 1978) Our behavior analytic version asserts that learning is demonstrated when a proper response occurs in the presence of specific environmental variables, because of the reinforcing consequences that follow their joint occurence (i.e., ABCs). - E.g., Gilbert's Mathetics, Engelmann's Direct Instruction version, Lindsley's Precision Teaching. Efficiency is the hallmark of Instructivism. - Many well-defined components: Assessing learners' entry behaviors and reinforcers; task analysis of antecedent stimuli, responses, and sequences; analyzing their sequences, shaping, prompting, corrective feedback, reinforcement, practice to mastery, and assessment. - Expository learning more time efficient than discovery learning, so much expository instruction, not much discovery teaching. A better system of Constructivist education Behavior analysts who understand Constructivist practices can greatly improve the success of Constructivist practices in general education. Get an invitation from a teacher to observe his/her Constructivist lessons Take notes to see where you could suggest injecting Instructivist designs - Wherever knowledge is unambiguous - when correct answers can be clearly identified. -E.g., Foundational repertoires in reading, math, language, writing - especially with tool skills such as phonics, where no good Constructivist data exist. - E.g., basic facts, concepts, and principle in a discipline. - Good places are where lessons are bogged down, and where a good number of students make errors. Note also where the teacher could explicitly teach prerequisite thinking, reasoning, and problem solving repertoires involved in their discovery learning activities. - E.g., Finding patterns, comparing and contrasting, making inferences, drawing conclusions, providing supporting evidence During your feedback session, - suggest the places where they can temper their Constructivist "thinking" injections with explicit instruction in foundational skills. - suggest the places where they could explicitly teach thinking skills before discovery activities. Have a good session, and be a behavioral ambassador!, The current, dominant theory and practice of teaching children and youth is Constructivism. In order to have greater influence on the American education system, behavior analysts must learn the tenets of Constructivism. The goal of this presentation is: 1) describe (not criticize!) Constructivism as it is currently practiced in education, and 2) illustrate what we could do to influence current practices., Advantages: Greater opportunities for discovery, reduction in design time, more opportunities for using already available instructional materials. At Morningside, teaching generative repertoires is as high a priority as teaching academic subjects. E.g., - routines for questioning teachers, peers - reasoning through Thinking Aloud Problem Solving (TAPS) - critiquing through Questioning the Author. - problem solving through John Dewey's Reflexive Thinking. Closing remarks The more expansive a learner's entering repertoire in a given context, the more influence the learner's entering history has in behavior-environment transactions in that context. Discovering and creating new meaning from thinking about new instructional experience - produces a series of alternations in the context of behavior (function-altering stimuli). - which occasion a rearrangement of one's existing repertoires - to meet the requirements in the unfamiliar, altered context. Generative Instructivism is Behavioral Constructivism., Behaviorism and Constructivism in Education Kent Johnson Morningside Academy Seattle, WA www.morningsideacademy.org kent@morningsideacademy.org Generative instruction Then go beyond Instructivism - go betond Mathetics, Direct Instruction, and Precision Teaching: We can engineer discovery learning. Present new, composite activities that require those fluent components. Design instruction so the composite activity will will recruit those fluent components into the complex untaught composite that you present. Discovery learning! Two types of discovery design: - Careful sequence of stimuli requiring only "tipping and quipping" for discovery learning. - Prompt thinking skills you have taught. Using these Generative Instruction principles, we can reduce time to mastery of typical curricula by one third or more.